June 2020 Speaker
Owing to the Covid 19 restrictions the June monthly meeting was also a virtual meeting on Zoom, and I am pleased to say we had about 50 members who managed to come on line and enjoy a talk by Ken on the ‘Origins of the street names of Galleywood’.
He started by telling us that a road connects places together and a street often only had houses on one side. In early times the only roads were the tracks between farms and small village settlements. Many of the road and street names are from the local farms and also the Lords of the Manors. Also most of the local vicars over the years at St Michael’s Church have streets named after them.
Ken showed us old maps from 200 years ago with the original names.
Watchouse Road possibly came from Watchers Road where the villagers were worried about the Napoleonic Invasion in the 1800’s
He also mentioned that Postage started in 1840 with the Penny black stamp and Post codes started in Norwich in 1959 and were completed in 1974.
Other interesting constructions were local roundabouts, Britvic, Miami and Army & Navy which many of us remember being built and named after important buildings and Industrial works from past years.
Another unusual name was Twitton Lane, which was apparently a Suffolk name which meant a narrow path between two rows of trees. Keene Hall and Keene Way were named after Mrs Lavinia Keene a local lady whose husband was at Pearl Assurance London. Pyne Gate and Rous Chase were linked into the Galleywood Race Course. Pipers Tye was where the people only paid a peppercorn rent for their land and Russets had the apple farms.
Finally Ken’s fascinating talk gave us a good afternoon’s entertainment and maybe encouraged us to visit local museums to learn more.